“…never can a lasting power be founded on broken promises and lying words. Such empires stand for one short hour. They may blossom with fair hopes, but time finds them out, and they fade and die. In a house, in a ship, in any structure, it is the foundation which most needs strength. So it is too with the actions of men’s lives, which must be founded on truth and justice.”
Demosthenes’ Olynthiac II.

Saturn wrote:“…never can a lasting power be founded on broken promises and lying words. Such empires stand for one short hour. They may blossom with fair hopes, but time finds them out, and they fade and die. In a house, in a ship, in any structure, it is the foundation which most needs strength. So it is too with the actions of men’s lives, which must be founded on truth and justice.”Demosthenes’ Olynthiac II.

“Why should God be necessary as a support for moral values? Can they not stand on their own, like aesthetic values for instance? Surely we can live morally – that is, considerately, humbly, responsibly and tolerantly – without believing that any action or type of action is absolutely right? And in practise religious people behave no better than irreligious – if anything the reverse, because they justify and intensify their wickedness by religious zeal.”
J.M. Ross.

“Is there such a feeling as love at first sight? And if there be, in what does its nature differ from love founded in long observation and slow growth? Perhaps its effects are not so permanent; but they are, while they last, as violent and intense. We walk the pathless mazes of society, vacant of joy, till we hold this clue, leading us through that labyrinth to paradise. Our nature dim, like to an unlighted torch, sleeps in formless blank till the fire attain it; this life of life, this light to moon, and glory to the sun. What does it matter, whether the fire be struck from flint and steel, nourished with care into a flame, slowly communicated to the dark wick, or whether swiftly the radiant power of light and warmth passes from a kindred power, and shines at once the beacon and the hope.”
Mary Shelley, The Last Man, Ch. v

11A man has a right to think as his reason directs, it is a duty he owes to himself to think with freedom, that he may act from conviction.

12A man has a right to unrestricted liberty of discussion; falsehood is a scorpion that will sting itself to death.

13A man has not only a right to express his thoughts but it is his duty to do so.

14No law has a right to discourage the practice of truth. A man ought to speak the truth on every occasion, a duty can never be criminal, what is not criminal cannot be injurious.

17No man has a right to do an evil thing that good may come.

19No man has a right to kill his brother, it is no excuse that he does so in uniform. He only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.

27No man has a right to be respected for any other possessions but those of virtue and talents. Titles are tinsel, power a corruptor, glory a bubble, and excessive wealth, a libel on its possessor.

28No man has right to monopolise more than he can enjoy; what the rich give to the poor, whilst millions are starving, is not a perfect favour, but an imperfect right.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, From A Declaration of Rights, Pgs. 558-60.

I've just started an excellent book for one of my leadership classes called: Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn. It is a book about meditation, primarily. Contained within it are some gems of quotes. Quite a few of them are from Thoreau. I'd forgotten how cool these American Transcendentalists are. Well, of course they're cool--they're the American Romantics, after all

Here's a quote from our friend Thoreau's Walden:

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars."

Malia wrote: I'd forgotten how cool these American Transcendentalists are. Well, of course they're cool--they're the American Romantics, after all

Here's a quote from our friend Thoreau's Walden:

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars."

Ah, excellent, Malia. Are you kidding? I always say Thoreau and Scottie Fitzgerald--my two American equivalents to Keats.

"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the Truth of Imagination."